Group of displaced Haitian children officially up for adoption

By Staff Writer

A dozen Haitian children who were displaced by last winter's devastating earthquake have been cleared for adoption in the U.S.

According to The Associated Press, the 12 children had been living in a religious institution near Pittsburgh since being flown to America after January's catastrophic quake in Haiti. Officials with the State Department said that the Haitian government has formally approved the adoptions, which means that the kids will be placed with U.S. families in the coming weeks.

Some legal experts argued that the 12 children should not have been eligible to come to America because they were not a part of the adoption process before the earthquake, and most of them still had living parents in Haiti. The news provider reports that the children's birth parents have officially relinquished custody.

The kids, who range in age from two to 13, have experienced some significant firsts in their lives since arriving in the U.S. Last winter presented the kids with their first view of snow, while some received hot showers for the first time.

Although the Haitian adoption cases were high-profile because of the circumstances surrounding their arrival, there are hundreds of thousands of other children throughout the U.S. who do not have a family. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that more than 500,000 kids in the U.S. live in some form of foster care.